


proud to call your own

by kitschvanitas



Series: break the silence open wide [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Canon Has Been Stripped Down And Mined For Parts, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:54:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23943448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitschvanitas/pseuds/kitschvanitas
Summary: Richie and Eddie move to Chicago and find another member of the Losers Club.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris
Series: break the silence open wide [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1667056
Comments: 76
Kudos: 185





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 8/31/20: hey, grad school is starting up, and i have been recalled to work and am also doing an internship. so i'm putting this series on pause. i just don't... have the bandwidth for the updates that you guys deserve. i'm so sorry.
> 
> also, this is the second part of a series that started with "tell me a piece of your history," so the bizarre alternate chronology here will definitely not make sense without reading it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suggested listening: "something comforting" by porter robinson. that song has always made me think of Stan, not sure why.

Somehow, in all of Stanley’s meticulous research on Chicago, the rain never came up. He woke up this morning to the sun blazing as relentlessly as ever, the only clouds against the blue sky hanging still and fluffy as the illustrations in a picture book, and he thought, with a delightful thrill of optimism, _today, I can leave my umbrella._

Like a fool. 

Somewhere between home and campus, the clouds lose their pleasant roundness and flatten out into a dull, dangerous gray. The city gets a single rumble of thunder as a warning before the sky opens up and pours down sheets of rain. Stanley lets out a frustrated groan and runs faster for the library, as if that'll make any difference. He's soaked by the time he gets inside the little lobby that separates the outside from the library proper. Someone else walks in behind him, but he barely registers that, too focused on making sure that the rain didn't damage the notebooks in his messenger bag. 

“That came out of nowhere, huh?” 

“It tends to do that,” Stanley says, running a hand over the mess the rain has made of his curls, trying his best to fix them in the faint reflection on the door glass. 

“It's gotta be the lake or something, right?” 

“Must be,” Stanley replies absently, although he isn't sure at all. It's a question he files away for later investigation, far down the list. 

“Hey, I think you dropped these,” the stranger says, and Stanley turns around to look at him for the first time. The other young man holds up Stanley's keys on their bright yellow lanyard. He's wearing a green and white striped t-shirt under a denim jacket that seems too heavy for this hot weather, especially as the rainwater keeps dripping down from his wavy dark hair and rolling down the already soaked fabric. 

“Oh, yeah, thanks,” Stanley says, taking the keys and tucking them into the outside pocket of his bag. The two of them exchange polite smiles, until the stranger’s suddenly blooms into something brighter and more genuine. “Holy shit-- Stanley?” 

Stanley blinks, his brow furrowing as he tries to match a name or a context to this face. He comes up with nothing-- he looks vaguely familiar, the way a lot of people do, but there's nothing for him to latch onto. The confusion must show on his face, because the other man gestures to himself with one hand, running the other through his hair. “It's me. Eddie Kaspbrak, remember? We were friends when we were kids.” 

The name finds no purchase in Stanley’s memory, and he feels faintly uneasy, for no reason he can pin down. “No, sorry. Think you've got me mixed up with someone else.” With that, he ducks out of the lobby and into the library, heading towards the elevators. 

His destination today is the stacks on the tenth floor, as usual. He wants to get a head start on his readings for the week, and he prefers to work at one of the little desks behind the American history stacks. The faint rattle and murmur of library sounds is easier for him to work in than the absolute silence of the quiet study floor. 

The odd encounter in the lobby has already started to fade as the elevator doors slide shut behind him, sinking out of his short term memory and into oblivion. 

Or it would, if someone hadn't followed him, jamming a damp, denim clad arm through the door to halt their progress. The doors slide back again, enough to allow the stranger-- Eddie, he remembers after a moment-- into the elevator. “Hey, thanks,” he says, leaning on one of the bars on the opposite side of the car. 

Stanley tries to think of what he could have done that deserves a thank you, comes up with nothing, then settles for a half shrug in response. His gaze settles resolutely on the dull yellow-orange lights on the elevator buttons, as if this is any other elevator ride. 

But apparently, this Eddie person doesn't seem to respect the social contract of the elevator, because he starts talking like they've been friends forever. “So, I understand that this probably sounds crazy--” 

“Look, man, I don't know you.” 

Something flickers across Eddie's expression, something impossibly sad. “I used to think that-- I forgot too. So did… so did Richie.” 

Stanley shakes his head, and that nervous, uneasy part of him wishes he had a can of pepper spray or something on his keys. Eddie seems nice enough, but this is a small box they're in together, and he's absorbed enough Lifetime movies by osmosis to know how quickly things can turn. 

The lights flicker in the elevator, and between floors seven and eight, the machinery outside the car shrieks, shudders, and comes to a stop. 

Stanley's breath freezes in his chest, and he looks up at the ceiling of the car, like he can will the elevator back into motion again. 

It doesn't work. 

“Oh, what the fuck,” the other passenger says, going down into a half crouch, like he's bracing for impact. After a moment in limbo, Stanley goes over to the emergency call button and presses it firmly, as if he's completely confident about what he's doing. The tinny sound of the dial tone fills the car. 

“Where does that go? 911?” 

“I don't know. I don't think so. Building maintenance, maybe.” 

“What? Building maintenance? What if I were having a fucking heart attack or something?” 

Stanley glanced over his shoulder at Eddie, one eyebrow raised. There's something familiar about the too fast rattle of his words, but he can't quite place it. “Are you?” 

Eddie rubs at the back of his neck, a sheepish smile tugged wanly over his anxious face. “Don't think so.” 

“Then we should be fine.” 

As it turns out, they're both wrong. The person on the other end is in the office for campus security, and they don't quite seem to know what to do. After collecting the address of the building and their names twice, the cheerful voice on the other end of the line advises them to “sit tight.” 

“As if we have a choice,” Stanley mutters, sinking to the floor and looking up at the ceiling. Eddie follows suit, laughing to himself a little nervously. He glances at his watch. “Think they'll accept this as an excuse for missing my histology lab?” 

“I would hope. It's not like you planned to get stuck in an elevator.” Stanley pulls out one of his notebooks, going to last week's lecture notes from Computational Linguistics. “Pre-med?” 

“Med school. How could you tell?” 

“I couldn't, actually. Lucky guess,” Stanley says, laughing a little to himself, even as. he looks at the physiology textbook poking out of the overstuffed backpack at Eddie’s side.. 

“So what are you studying?” 

“Linguistics. I'll get my Ph.D someday, hopefully.” 

“You can study that?” 

“You can study anything. It's getting someone else to do it that's the real trick,” Stanley says, a wry grin playing on his lips despite the fuckery of this whole situation. 

Eddie nods, but he doesn't seem to get the joke. Instead, he looks over at him, that small smile shrinking into something sadder. “You really don't remember?” he says, his voice quiet. 

“I don't know you,” Stanley says, almost as a reflex. 

“We were in the same kindergarten class. Back in Derry. You brought your bird book to show and tell.” 

All at once, Stanley can picture it in his mind-- _the enormous hawk spreading its wings across the white cover, swooping gracefully under_ The Sibley Guide to Birds. _He can feel its comforting weight on his lap as he carefully turns the pages, trying to find the bird his friend is describing at a mile a minute, all the words jumbling together at once._

“Purple finches.” 

“... what?” 

“You had purple finches in your yard,” Stanley says, a note of wonder coming into his voice, as if he's rediscovering something he thought was impossible, pulled out of the inscrutable depths of his brain. He wonders if the fishermen who pulled the coelacanth out of the water eons after its supposed extinction felt the same way, wonder and fear circling each other uncertainly inside their heads. “And you got so mad--” 

“Because those little bastards were _definitely_ red,” Eddie says, grinning at Stanley now, full and bright. “I tried to tell you the book was wrong. It took the teacher and you to convince me.” 

“You weren't convinced. You just said that the person who named it clearly didn't have a handle on his colors.” 

They laugh together then, like friends do. “God. I haven't thought about that in years.” 

“Me either,” Stanley says, as if this is mere absent-mindedness and not the sudden emergence of an oddly lively fossil. The lights flicker again, and Eddie sucks in a nervous breath as the elevator starts to move again. The both of them scramble to their feet as the elevator starts to move again, humming along as if nothing ever happened. “Shit. Guess I'm gonna make it to my lab after all.” 

“Lucky you,” Stanley says, pulling his bag back onto his shoulder as he steps out onto the blessedly solid tile of the tenth floor. Eddie follows him out, holding out a hand to shake. “It was good talking to you again,” he says, a painfully earnest smile on his face. Stanley shakes his hand a little awkwardly. “Yeah. It was good talking to you too.” 

“We should catch up sometime,” Eddie says, before ducking into the stairwell. Stanley watches him go, a bemused smile on his face as he wonders how they'll manage to do that. Will they end up involved in another elevator mishap? Perhaps get stranded on the train? 

He shakes his head and goes to his usual table, unloading the contents of his messenger bag in neat stacks. The world is always smaller than you think. He's crossed the country twice, and he still managed to have someone wander out of the flat, static snapshots that make up what he remembers of Derry-- _holding a sparkler alone on the driveway of their old house; a shot posed on the bench in front of that hideous Paul Bunyan statue; standing sullenly at eighth grade graduation._

It's strange to feel the memory of that long ago afternoon slide into place among these pictures, a living, vivid creature among dry and dead bones. He wonders briefly what else might be hidden there, just beyond his reach. 

But he has too many chapters to read to worry about that at present. 

⚫️

_Stanley rarely dreams. At least, that's what he thinks. He doesn't remember them upon waking, and he doesn't think he's missing anything. Just random input and output, only as much meaning as you can make._

_But that night, he dreams of sitting alone on the riverbank, the tall golden grass whispering all around him in the September wind. He closes his eyes and breathes this still moment in deep, like this is the first chance he's had to breathe in ages._

Swear you'll come back. 

_He opens his eyes and looks down to see a silvery pink scar across his palm. He traces his fingers along it like he's reading his own palm, like he'll find the answers there._

_In the whisper of the grass, he can hear his friends laughing and calling to him._

_The next morning, he stares for a moment at his unscarred palm, feeling crushed under the weight of a forgotten promise until he fully awakens._

⚫️

Weeks later, fall has finally swept in, a biting edge in the October wind. Stanley has settled well into the rhythm of grad school by now, and the future seems so… possible. Most nights, when he's elbow deep in yet another paper on semantics or morphology, he can practically see the diploma in the wall of his future office, gleaming like a beacon of all he's ever wanted to be. 

Tonight, he's earned some kind of small celebration. 

He goes to the pizza place down the block from his apartment. It's not spectacular pizza or anything, but it's nearby, and it’s never empty, for something this close to campus. He likes to settle in with a book that has nothing to do with linguistics and linger for hours, losing himself in the world on the page. 

He's walking back to his usual table in the furthest corner when someone calls his name. “Stanley!” 

He whips around, nearly dropping his tray as he stares around the crowded restaurant, trying to trace the voice to its source. Finally, he spots someone waving at him from one of the booths up by the front window. It takes him a few moments to connect a name to the face-- _elevator; purple finches; Eddie_. He nods and smiles, preparing to duck back to his usual place, but there's a group of college freshmen sliding into place there already, and Eddie waves him over. 

Stanley swallows and heads over. At least only one of the people in that booth is a stranger. 

And the second person is only a stranger for so long. He adjusts his glasses and swallows his drink, thumping on his chest a little theatrically, like he’s just had a near miss with choking on it. “Stan the man, as I live and breathe. I really thought Eddie was fuckin’ with me,” he says, holding out a hand in greeting once Stanley has set his tray down. “It’s good to see you, man.” 

Stanley nods, staring at this man and trying to make him fit somewhere in his limited memory. He’s about to give up when it rises out of the depths all at once, like a sea monster in a bad movie. 

_He and Eddie are standing in one of the aisles of the Derry Video Palace, trying to find something to watch for that night’s sleepover. The third boy is supposed to be helping, but they lost him a couple minutes ago, when they dared browse outside the horror section. He’ll be back any minute now, Stanley knows, as soon as he spots a slipcover weird enough to catch his eye._

_And the other boy does come back. But he’s accompanied by a cardboard stand up taller than he is, one he definitely isn’t supposed to have. “May I have this dance?” he says, dark hair falling into his eyes as he drops into a low bow._

_“Put that back,” Stanley says, before going back to the movie he was examining. He hopes that’ll be the end of it. But it never is._

_Instead, Stanley and Eddie watch as their friend waltzes the cardboard standup towards them, humming something that sounds like someone put “The Blue Danube” in a blender and added a hefty shot of what their dads call rock’n’roll. Eddie lets out a laugh before he can stop himself, and Stan is biting back a smile even as he tells Richie one more time to put the standup back._

_Then Richie makes to twirl his cardboard partner, and in the process, sends dozens of the slipcovers to the floor in a clatter of cardboard and plastic. The three of them stare at each other in an ankle deep mess, at a loss for what to do. They’re frozen in place until the guy behind the counter comes back from his smoke break and yells for them to get the fuck out of his store._

“Richie Tozier,” he says, more to himself than either of them, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

The other man nods and bows his head, dropping into a competent British accent. “At your service, sire.” 

“You got us banned from the video store for life.” 

“Sounds like the kinda shit I’d get up to.” 

Eddie laughs, bumping his shoulder against Richie’s. “I actually found out later it was just Richie banned. You and me were fine.” 

Stanley looks over at Eddie, mouth open in disbelief for a moment. “Seriously? I used to make my mom go in whenever I wanted something from there!” he says, shaking his head as another memory surfaces, just behind the other-- _waiting in the car and slumping as far down in the seat as he'll go, trying to make himself invisible._

“What can I say, I live to cause trouble wherever I go,” Richie says with a lopsided from. Then he looks over at Eddie, shaking his head. “Hey, no, c'mon, Eds. Put that away.” 

Eddie lets the notecards fall back into his backpack and scowls at Richie, but there's no real heat in the expression. “I was just gonna do a little review while I waited for our food--” 

“No, you're taking a break, remember? No more doctor stuff until we get home.” 

“Richie--” 

“No, sorry, the sacred rite of Thursday night pizza is binding, Eddie. The only doctor shit allowed is ER rerun discussion--” 

“I fucking hate that show.” 

“I know. So you take a break, marinate in pizza fumes, and return to Chez Kaspbrak refreshed and ready to study shit that would make my brain run out my ears.” 

“Are you in school too?” 

Richie shakes his head. “Nah. I work at a call center and wait tables. And I go to open mics when I can, anything to get eyeballs on me, you know?” 

Stanley nods as if he understands, but Eddie seems to catch on. “Richie's a comedian.” 

“I'm trying to be, anyway--” 

“You are,” Eddie says firmly, before taking a slice of the pizza that the waitress sets in the middle of the table. “God knows we haven't been able to get you to stop since you were twelve.” 

“Earlier than that,” Stanley says, smiling himself. 

Richie snorts and goes to tousle Eddie’s hair. He lingers there for just a moment too long, and all of this feels strangely familiar to Stanley. “So, Stan. Eddie said you were studying linguistics.” 

“Yeah.” 

“What is that? I tried asking Eddie, but he just mumbled something about ‘I dunno, languages, I guess,’ and went back to studying.” 

“I did not.” 

Stanley laughs. “I mean, he's not wrong. It is about language. About its form, its sound, its structure, the way we speak it, the way we write it, the way we understand it. Or… don't, sometimes.” 

Richie nods, but he's looking at Stanley with genuine interest, following the words carefully. That feels familiar too-- the bright, restless mind behind the crooked grin and thick glasses. When Richie really paid attention to you, it felt like having a hummingbird perch on you. There was always something just this side of magic in those moments. 

“So which part are you studying?” 

“Psycholinguistics,” Stanley says without hesitation. Part of him is distantly worried that he's going to dump too much on him all at once and suffocate that spark of interest in Richie's eyes. But he's already here, and anyway, Richie's the one who asked. “I want to know what lets us process language up here,” he says, tapping at his temple. “How we produce it, how we process it… all of that.” 

“Holy shit. What were you guys doing hanging out with a dumbass like me?” 

“I think I was using you to reach high shelves, mostly,” Eddie says, before sticking his tongue out at him. Richie returns the gesture, flipping him off for good measure. 

“You had your moments, I'm sure,” Stanley says airily, before taking a sip of his drink. Eddie and Richie's pizza is nearly gone, and Eddie looks down at his watch. Richie seems to know right away what that means, and he goes to fumble through Eddie’s bag, pulling out a pen. He writes a phone number down on one of the napkins left on the table before sliding it over to Stanley. 

“That's the number for our place. If you wanna hang out sometime, you know?” 

Stanley folds the napkin and slides it into his pocket. “Sure,” he says, smiling at the two of them. “Sometime.” 

Richie slides out of the booth, then helps Eddie out. “All right, man. See you later.” 

“Bye, Stan,” Eddie says. The two of them head off into the darkening street, Richie sliding an arm around Eddie's shoulders in a fond, protective gesture. Stanley feels like he should be surprised, but he isn't. Another memory bubbles up, just a fragment this time-- _watching Eddie hold out an ice cream cone for Richie, the two of them standing so close their hands nearly touched even in the baking heat of July._

He waits for another memory, some other scrap of who he used to be returned from the darkest, quietest parts of himself, but there's nothing more that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stanley Uris: Professional Third Wheel. 
> 
> also, i'm going to be scattering Stan POV chapters throughout bc i like to make my life difficult. also bc i adore him. also bc i am determined to find a way to work all my weird interests and hobby horses into the losers club.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, sorry for the delay. 
> 
> suggested listening: "we walk the same line" by everything but the girl.

Chicago has been Richie's dream for ages. It's the perfect future he escapes into, running away from endless homerooms and hospital beds and winter mornings too cold to breathe through. He always imagined that he would step off the bus or the train or plane or little red wagon or whatever and be reborn, shiny and fresh and new, like the lead in any given Broadway play, perched on a suitcase and delivering a set that has the whole city rolling. In his daydreams, he's always the perfect opening act, a breath away from being the headliner. 

Instead, he sprains his ankle jumping out of the Uhaul Eddie drove from Ohio to Chicago, and he feels like pretty much the same person he always has been, just smaller. He could get lost in this place. Maybe he already is. 

But he looks over at Eddie, pops a couple ibuprofen dry, and hurls himself back into the fray of wrestling their whole life into the garden (read: basement, with almost a view of some gnarly shrubs of indeterminate identity in the one tiny window) apartment they rented, sight unseen. 

It's probably first day jitters. That's all. He got too used to being a big fish in a little pond, and it'll just take time. 

Just time. 

But if time is the answer, he's not sure he can wait this out. 

He doesn't get nervous when he's performing. He never has. There's something safe about the person he is up there-- nothing but setups and punchlines, punctuated with a winning smile. And people laugh, like always. 

It's the after, when he tries to mingle with everyone else. That's when he feels out of place. He introduced himself to the same people over and over, and their eyes slide right past him after a few minutes of casual banter to their real friends. 

He spends more time than he probably should standing in the middle of a crowded bar, clutching a glass of slowly melting ice and trying to figure out how to be a person. It all feels a bit too much like standing in the high school cafeteria, trying to figure out where to sit. 

At least here, he can just leave. And he does, quicker and quicker these days, even when people know his name. Quicker then, maybe. 

⚫️

_As it turns out, all this is the alphabet’s fault. “Tozier” comes right before “Uris” on the class roster, and they start first grade sitting right across from each other at those little four person desks. Richie kicks his feet restlessly under the table as the teacher goes through the lunch rules and procedures. Her voice fades in and out of his awareness like a radio station about to drop out of range entirely, and he twists as much as he can get away with in his chair. He learned the hard way not to make too much noise. That's how you get in trouble._

_Then he hears those magic words-- “time for lunch.” In one fluid motion, he pushes out of his chair and bolts for the door._

_Or he would, if there weren't someone grabbing his arm. He only manages to push his chair away out a little bit before turning his head back to the boy in front of him. “What?”_

__“We're supposed to wait and get in a line. She'll tell us when to go.”_ _

__“Oh. Why?”_ _

__The other boy starts to open his mouth to answer, then closes it, apparently considering the question. “I don't know. But that's just the rules,” he says, letting go of Richie's arm. He turns back to the teacher, but Richie keeps looking at him, like he's really seeing him for the first time._ _

__When the teacher finally calls to them, Stanley falls into place behind him in line, and he doesn't say anything about Richie's restless feet, or the way he juggles his lunchbox back and forth between his palms. But he does look over curiously when Richie opens his lunchbox to reveal a comic book, crumpled a little bit to fit in with the peanut butter sandwich and carrot sticks._ _

__“Why do you have that in there?”_ _

__“Cause I wasn't sure I'd be able to go back and get it before lunch,” Richie says through a mouthful of peanut butter. “My teacher last year said these didn't count for silent reading, so I pretty much have to do it now.”_ _

__Stanley leans over, his brow furrowed. “Why isn't this reading?”_ _

__“Dunno,” Richie says cheerfully. “My mom had a bunch of meetings with her about it. Who's your favorite X-Man?”_ _

__Stan shrugs, nibbling at some crackers. “I've never read those.”_ _

__Richie stares over at him for a moment, then breaks into a wide grin. It's not often he gets to be the expert in anything. But he rises to the challenge, flipping through the book in front of them, trying to find any panel with the whole team. He rattles through the whole roster at warp speed, even with his commentary. Stanley, to his credit, pays attention the whole time, with the same intensity he used for all the teacher’s rules._ _

__When the bell rings to send them all back to their classroom, Richie slides the comic book across to Stanley. “You can borrow it if you want. I've read it like, twice already.”_ _

__Stanley smiles at him, taking it in his hands. “Thanks, Richie.”_ _

__“No problemo, Stanley,” Richie says, grinning back at him. He even sticks out his fingers at Stan like two imaginary guns, like he saw on one of the sitcoms his dad loves. And Stanley laughs-- really laughs, eyes closed for a second and everything, and Richie Tozier feels like the champion of the world._ _

_⚫️_

__

__

In theory, everything gets old. Everything wears thin and fades away. Even the rocks at the edge of the ocean crumble to sand eventually. 

But Richie doesn't think he'll ever lose that electric thrill he gets up and down his spine when Eddie wears his clothes. 

“Hey, can I borrow your hoodie,” Eddie calls to him, one arm already in the sleeve of the soft red hoodie Richie wears instead of a jacket until he can no longer deny the reality of winter. 

Richie stretches and smiles at him, soft and a little sleepy still. “Sure, Eds. Just don't get any pizza sauce on it this time.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes and flips him off, but he still leans in to kiss Richie goodbye, resting a hand at the back of his head. “I'll be back kinda late; I'm meeting with my review group for gross anatomy. I should be back around eight or nine?” 

“Sounds good,” Richie says, stroking his thumb over Eddie's cheek a moment before using the strings of his hoodie to pull him down for another kiss, this one deeper, more intense. Eddie gasps softly, then overbalances, almost falling onto the bed. He laughs, but doesn't pull away. “Richie, I gotta go.” 

“I know, I know, just-- one more for luck, okay?” 

“Okay,” Eddie says, leaning over to kiss him one more time, gentle but firm. “See you later.” 

Richie lounges around in their bed for a couple minutes before he finally gets up. He's off today, but he's still got shit to do-- sweep and mop the floors, do the laundry, continue his never ending battle against the new apartment’s basement funk… anything to avoid the yellow notepad he's supposed to be writing his new routine on. 

Richie Tozier, master of distraction. 

Once he's run out of non-writing tasks to do in the apartment, he goes for a walk. He had vague ideas of maybe going to the corner store, or the park, but all those vanish with the click of the lock. Instead, the only thought in his entire head is the muffled jangle of his keys inside his hoodie pocket the night before. 

The hoodie Eddie is currently wearing across town. 

“Aw fuck,” Richie says to himself, going to try the doorknob, even though he knows it'll be locked. 

He sighs heavily and leans against the door for a moment, trying to weigh his options. 

He could camp out here for another couple of hours. Or try tracking down their escape artist of a landlord. Or… he could go to campus and try and find Eddie. That'll still involve camping out, but at least he'll be out of this musty basement. 

He vaguely remembers Eddie mentioning that his review groups meet in the library, so he follows a campus tour group there. He stares around the bright and airy space, full of people caught up in their scholarly pursuits-- the tap of keyboards, the rustle of pages, the low murmur of very important conversations. Richie feels even more hopelessly out of place than usual. 

He wanders into the stacks for a couple of minutes, pretending to look for something. He finally pulls an enormous art history book off the shelf and lugs it back to one of the tables right by the entrance. He flips through the pages idly, going back and forth between glossy pages of prints and dense essays in tiny print, doing his best impression of somebody who's legitimately studying and not just looking at the pictures. 

“Richie?” 

He snaps to attention, twisting in his chair to fully look at the person talking to. “Oh hey, Stan.” 

“What are you doing?” 

Richie lifts up the book to show off a vivid print of Venus over a stormy sea, only slightly exaggerating the effort it takes to do so. “Studying. Got that big exam for art history coming up. Heard the professor’s gonna make us match the tits to the painting they belong to.” 

Stan stares at him, one eyebrow quirked up, the smallest trace of a smile tugging valiantly at one corner of his mouth. Richie drops the book back to the desk with a shrug. “I got locked out. Eddie borrowed my jacket and I forgot my keys were in it. So I'm waiting to see if I can grab them off him real quick before his review group. What about you?” 

Stan sets his messenger bag down on the table, and Richie realizes in a moment of startled joy that Stan is sitting down with him, settling down to stay. “I'm supposed to give a presentation in my research methods class tonight. I wanted to come here and just… go over my notes again.” 

“Yeah? What about?” 

“Field techniques. How to get people to talk to you, how to record it properly when they do talk to you, stuff like that.” 

“Huh. Hey, I've got a question for you.” 

Stanley glances up from his notecards. “Yeah?” 

Richie slides the book across to him. “If these Renaissance guys were so smart, how come none of em could draw a baby?” 

Stan bursts into laughter, barely managing to muffle it with his hand. He's still holding his notecards in his other hand, but he leans over to look at the ugly baby Jesus leering out from Mary's arms. “I don't know. I always thought it was some kind of weird Catholic thing?” 

“Look at this kid. He's balding! He looks like the before picture on a fuckin’ Rogaine commerical.” 

Stan half-heartedly shushes him through his laughter, and Richie makes it his personal mission to find and share all the ugliest babies in this book. There's a lot of material, as it turns out. 

He's found a particularly choice example, and he nudges Stan. “This one looks like he's gonna tell me he printed his money this morning and then get mad when I don't laugh.” 

Stanley laughs, but there's something absent in the sound, like he's not really listening. He's not even looking at the book, as it turns out. Instead, his eyes are fixed on a woman their age over by the reference desk, sorting intently through a pile of books on a cart. Stan's face has taken on the kind of furtive longing that Richie Tozier is intimately familiar with. Even if he could use a little help on the “furtive” front. “Who's that?” 

“That's Patty.” There's a bit of red trickling into Stan’s cheeks, and Richie finds it hopelessly adorable. 

“And who's Patty?” 

Stan’s suddenly very intent on his notecards again. “She's auditing my research methods class. She's doing her PhD in the biology department, but I think she said she wanted some additional perspective outside her field…” 

Richie grins at him. “Yeah? You guys good friends?” 

Stan stares at those notecards like they contain the solution for world peace. “We talk after class sometimes.” 

Richie nods slowly, going over this information. The mysterious Patty makes eye contact with him, and Richie does either the best or worst thing he can do. He smiles and waves, like he's known her for years. Stan stares at him for a split second of sheer horror, and then slowly waves at her himself. 

Her face brightens as she sees Stan, and she pushes her cart of books over. “Hey, Stanley! How's it going?” 

Stan swallows hard. “Uh. Pretty good. Just getting ready for class now, you know?” 

“You're presenting tonight, right?” 

Stan awkwardly fans out his notecards for a moment, and Richie sets his chin on his fist as he tries to figure out what the fuck that gesture is supposed to be. “Yep. All about field techniques, you know?” he says, with an awkward little laugh. Richie stares at him for a second. _What the fuck are you doing, Stan the Man?_

But Patty laughs, genuine and warm, and she tucks her long dark hair behind her ear. “I'm looking forward to it.” 

“Hopefully it goes okay.” 

“It will,” she says, with absolute confidence, reaching over to touch Stan’s shoulder for just a moment, and Richie wonders briefly if the guy is gonna keel over like a fainting goat. “I've gotta go. See you in class, Stanley!” 

Richie waits until the squeaking of the cart’s wheels is out of range before he turns to Stanley, hand still resting on his chin. “You're not even gonna introduce me?” 

Stanley has no response, beyond lowering his forehead to the table. Richie rests a consoling hand on his back. “I think you should have fluffed the notecards more. Girls love notecards, I think I read that in _GQ_ once.” 

“Please shut up,” Stanley groans, his fingers knotting in his curly hair. 

“Or you could have like, offered her a fistful of highlighters, to show her you're a provider--” 

“Richie? What are you doing here?” 

Richie can't help the bright smile that breaks over his face as soon as he sees Eddie. “Just watching the mating rituals of the _Dorkus sapiens._ I think I might try and get published in _Nature_ , you know?” 

“Hi, Eddie,” Stan says with an exhausted sigh as he lifts his head. Eddie looks back and forth between them, then his eyes go wide as he pulls Richie's keys out of his hoodie pocket. 

“Yeah. You stole my keys when you stole my hoodie. I'm locked out, Eds.” 

“I didn't steal anything, you said I could borrow it. And you shouldn't leave shit in your pockets, that's why you can never find anything.” 

“I left them there so I could find them. Obviously.” 

Eddie lets out an exasperated sigh as he passes Richie his keys back. “That worked out really well. Are you gonna head home now?” 

“Uh… probably not,” Richie says. “I thought I'd hang out until you finished up. We could get dinner? Maybe?” 

Eddie smiles at him, and the exasperation mostly fades away. “Sure. See you in a bit, okay?” His hand drops down to Richie's and gives it a gentle and all too brief squeeze. 

“See you, Eds,” Richie says, smiling back. 

“It was good to see you again, Stan. You wanna get dinner with us 

“I'd love to. But I have class pretty soon, and it runs really late. Maybe some other time?” Stan says, his voice genuinely apologetic. Eddie nods and waves at both of them again, before disappearing into one of the meeting rooms with his review group. 

Stan starts to gather his things, but he looks over at Richie as he does. “Can I ask you a question?” The sudden caution in his voice sets Richie on edge, but he still nods, drumming his fingers on the art book. “Yeah, sure.” 

“Are you guys… together?” 

“Nah, we just live in a studio together and share a bed for the rent.” The sarcasm in his voice bites harder than he means to, and he tries to be a little softer when he speaks up again. “Yeah. Yeah, we're together.” 

Stan is awkward about it, but the smile he flashes Richie seems genuine. “Okay. I just wanted to check, I didn't want to… assume, or something. Good for you,” he says as he slides his messenger bag over his shoulders. 

“Yeah, thanks. Tell Patty I said hey.” 

Stanley shakes his head and laughs. “Bye, Richie.” 

“Seriously, tell her I said hi! She seems cool,” Richie calls to him, but Stan has already booked it out of the library door. “Hopeless,” he mutters to himself, paging through the book again. 

He's not sure how to help _Dorkus sapiens_ , but he'll find a way. And it won't involve awkward notecard displays. 

Or maybe it will. Who knows? 

⚫️

_“Stanley, can I please sit with you guys?”_

_Richie blinks and pushes his glasses up his nose, looking over at the kid trying to edge onto their bench. He recognizes him vaguely-- he thinks he was maybe in the nurse's office with him when he got a bloody nose last year. Richie has no idea what his name is, but he keeps staring at his big brown eyes like he'll suddenly find the answer there._

_“Eddie, you're supposed to sit over there, you'll get in trouble,” Stan says._

_“But Greta is mean, she's like… she's really mean, Stanley.”_

_Stan sighs and scoots to the side as much as he can, making room for the other boy between them. Eddie sighs with relief and sets his lunchbox down-- plain red, not E.T. like Stanley's, or Knight Rider like Richie's._

_“Thanks, guys.”_

_“I'm Richie,” he blurts out, and the two of them stare at him. His face is getting red, and he doesn't know why._

_“I'm… Eddie,” the other boy says, his voice almost shy. Then he sees the comic open in front of Richie. “You're allowed to read those?”_

_“Yeah,” Richie scoffs. It hasn't occurred to him that anyone would have limits set on their reading by anyone but teachers. “A lot of these are my dad's, he's got like a zillion. He bet me a bike I couldn't finish them all by New Year's.”_

_Eddie looks over at the pages curiously, and Richie edges it closer so he can read it. “My mom says they're too violent,” he says, looking at a panel of the Hulk slamming Spiderman through the window of a skyscraper, hundreds of feet off the ground._

_“Yeah, that's how you know they're good.”_

_Eddie laughs, and he grins over at Richie, a little uncertain, like he doesn't quite get the joke. There's a gap there, where one of his teeth is missing. This close, he can even see a scattering of freckles over his nose._

_Something flutters against Richie's ribcage, and he smiles back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Richie Tozier, singlehandedly working on the Species Survival Plan of _Dorkus sapiens._
> 
> also, RIP to the kindergarten teacher who tried to shame Richie for reading choices, bc i bet Maggie destroyed her


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey. sorry to disappear again. it's been hard to write lately. this is what i've got while i try to be back in the groove. 
> 
> suggested listening: "dreams" by the cranberries.

The whole idea of moving to Chicago with Richie was to facilitate Eddie seeing his boyfriend at some point. Unfortunately, medical school has other ideas. Mostly, those ideas are “consume every scrap of time left in Eddie Kaspbrak's day/week/month/year/life.” Even Thursday night pizza has, out of necessity, turned into Eddie scarfing down takeout at the kitchen table while he pores over notecards and textbooks; preparing for tests or his weekly lookup. 

It's a little after 8 pm, and he's wrapping up his shift at the school’s free clinic. He pauses at the mirror hanging on the back of the locker room door, staring for a moment at his reflection. He wonders when the scrubs will stop making him feel like a kid playing dress up. 

The fluorescent lights overhead catch the little silver star sticker on the front of his stethoscope, and Eddie pauses for a second, smiling to himself as he traces his thumb over it. He does that so often that the shiny part is starting to flake off along the edges. 

On the bus ride home, he pulls out the little planner Chrissie gave him as a graduation gift. She covered the cover’s boring beige faux leather in colorful stickers-- galloping unicorns, wide eyed aliens, a rainbow of smiley faces. He really should call her. It's been a long time. 

He flips through the pages until he gets to this week and the next. He's got a final for physiology on Monday, and his presentation on a physician's legal rights, and two more shifts at the free clinic, and... the December break can't possibly get here fast enough. He lets the planner fall closed and watches the city lights as the bus lurches past. 

He jogs the three blocks from the bus stop to the apartment, humming softly to himself as he goes down into the little hallway between the building’s laundry room and their apartment. He can hear music from behind the door. 

As soon as he crosses the threshold into their place, the faintly moldy basement funk of the hallway is drowned out by the warm and familiar smell of Richie's cooking. Eddie couldn't hope to identify what exactly makes up the savory chaos of his food, and he doesn't think Richie could either, unless you caught him in the moment. He smiles again as he catches sight of his boyfriend, crooning along with the radio as he works in their tiny kitchen. He drops his backpack on the floor and walks up behind Richie, sliding his arms around his waist and burying his face in the smooth cotton of his button up shirt for a moment. “What are you making? It smells good.” 

“Thought I would try something new-- you like enchiladas, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Cool, hopefully you still do after this. I kinda had to improvise a little in places.” 

Eddie gets up on his toes for a second to press a kiss just below Richie's ear. “That usually turns out pretty well for you.” 

“Emphasis on ‘usually--’” 

“Stop it,” Eddie says with a laugh, breathing in deep afterwards. There’s a part of him that always wants to linger in these moments, to find a way to slip out of regular time and stay here forever in the comfort in between. It's been too long. He should fix that. 

“Who, me? Never.” 

Eddie bites his lip and rests his chin over Richie's shoulder. He can smell the faintly woodsy scent of that body spray Richie likes to wear, mingling with the synthetic fruit of their cheap shampoo, both layered deep under the warmth of their kitchen. He leaves another kiss, this one lower, along the side of Richie's throat. 

His boyfriend lets out a soft groan, music to Eddie's ears. “Eds...” 

“What,” he whispers, even as his hands slide upward, playing with the top button of Richie's shirt, teasing it open. “I just missed you, that's all.” 

“I'm not gonna get dinner done,” Richie sighs, turning his head towards Eddie as he moves on to the next button. Eddie stops just short of a kiss, one of his hands sliding up to the soft, dark curls at the back of his boyfriend’s head. He smirks up at Richie, tugging gently at his hair. “As long as you don't burn it this time, right?” 

“Oh, fuck off, that was _one time…_ ” 

“One time, and the apartment smelled like smoke for a week--” 

“Three days, tops,” Richie manages to say, before Eddie cuts him off with a kiss. He's down to the last button, and Eddie's hand plays across his bare skin now. 

“Pretty sure it was at least four,” he says, his fingertips tracing along the trail of dark hairs leading into Richie's jeans and boxers, pushing his shirt away so he can press kisses along his shoulders. 

“Eddie…” 

“Five, actually, now that I'm thinking about it,” he says, before hiding his smile in the junction of Richie's neck and shoulder. He can feel Richie's heartbeat quickening under his hands, and there's a little thrill of triumph in his own. He pulls away, but not without taking Richie's hand. “C'mon,” he says, a smile playing on his lips. He doesn't pull-- he doesn't have to. Before the syllables have even fully left his lips, Richie is scrambling to turn the oven off and follow Eddie to their bed. He's halfway there before he stops and cranes his neck, double checking. Eddie laughs as soon as their eyes meet, and that doesn't stop, even as Richie comes back to him. The sound is only muffled when Richie meets him in a long, hungry kiss. 

They tumble onto the bed, but it doesn't really feel like falling. Eddie doesn't think it ever could. Falling, he thinks, is about being caught in midair, not knowing where you'll land. He knows exactly where he is. Richie is on top of him, pushing up the hem of his dark blue scrub top to kiss along the skin bared there, winding the drawstrings on his pants gently around his fingers. “These are kinda hot,” he mumbles, grinning crookedly up at Eddie. 

“They are not, they're basically pajamas,” Eddie scoffs, tucking a stray lock of Richie's hair behind his ear. 

“I think your pajamas are hot too.” 

Eddie laughs again, shaking his head. “Ninety percent of those are your clothes…” 

“Yeah, I got good taste--” 

“You do not.” 

“I do,” Richie says, although there's no real heat in it, no argument. He strokes a hand along Eddie's cheek, one thumb brushing his skin with impossible tenderness. “I mean, you're here, aren't you?” 

Eddie closes the distance between them with a kiss, letting his eyes fall closed for a moment, focusing on their breathing, on Richie's warmth surrounding him. 

Then he puts a hand on Richie's shoulder, nudging him gently. His boyfriend takes the cue right away, rolling over so that Eddie's on top of him now, his hands resting gentle on Eddie's hips. 

Eddie shrugs out of the scrub top and tosses it aside before slipping his hands into Richie's. He eases down into another kiss, pinning Richie's hands up above his head and rocking his own hips down. 

“Fuck,” Richie breathes against his lips. 

Eddie smiles, moving down to kiss along Richie's throat. “We’ll get there.” 

“ _Eddie…_ ” 

He lets go of one of Richie's hands so he can work on undoing the button of his jeans. Richie's hands stay right where they are, and he looks up at Eddie with this happy, thunderstruck smile, one of those goofy expressions that should make Eddie laugh, but makes him want to kiss Richie over and over instead, until he believes in the goodness of this moment too. 

He slides his free hand into Richie's boxers, pulling them down so he can stroke his cock, tracing his fingers around the length of him, through the little trail of pre come. “Eds, sweetheart,” Richie says, his voice so soft and already half-wrecked. Every version of Richie is Eddie's favorite (even if he can never tell him that), but there's a special place in Eddie's head for this version-- eyes half-lidded, cheeks flushed, glasses askew, voice low and overflowing with want. 

“Yeah, that's me,” Eddie says, leaning down to kiss Richie's throat again. He lets go of Richie's other hand, and all at once, both of his boyfriend's hands are on his hips again before tugging down his scrubs and boxers. He grabs hold of Eddie's ass, and now it's Eddie's turn to moan softly. 

They kick their way out of their respective pairs of pants in a clumsy rush-- “jeans are a fuckin’ hazard,” Richie mutters, and Eddie laughs-- and when they're finally fully naked, Eddie hangs back for a second, taking in the sight of Richie naked on the bed. He lets his eyes roam over him, biting his lower lip. 

“Something wrong, Eds?” 

He should tell him, even if he won't believe him. “You look good, Richie.” 

Before Richie can even start his deflection-- _I think you need glasses, Eddie Spaghetti_ or _nah, you got me mixed up with someone else_ or _can I have some of what you're smoking--_ Eddie is leaning down again, tracing a fingertip from Richie's navel to his chin, tilting his face up for a kiss. “No, you do. I checked. Trust me.” 

He can feel Richie smiling into the kiss, and that smile is everything. “I do. Even if--” 

“Are you gonna finish whatever dumb joke you’re about to make, or are you gonna fuck me, Rich?” 

“I mean, I'm a pretty good multitasker,” Richie says, even as he sits up and grabs for the drawer of their bedside table. He's gotten a lot less clumsy about this since their first time, but he always opens him up so slowly, so carefully, like he's worried he'll break something. Maybe part of it is a tease, but he always looks to Eddie for reassurance, even with that crooked grin playing on his lips. 

He eases himself down onto Richie's cock, his arms resting on Richie's shoulders. “Fuck, that feels good,” he breathes. Richie grins up at him, but he doesn't say anything, just starts matching Eddie's motions, resting his hands on his hips to give Eddie some more leverage. 

Eddie leans down to kiss him, messy and breathless, knotting his fingers in Richie's dark hair. Richie falls backwards on the bed, and then he's rolling them both over, clutching at the back of Eddie's thigh as he thrusts forward. Eddie moans again, his eyes falling shut as he lets himself linger in this moment, in the slide of their sweaty skin together, in the sensation of Richie inside him, on top of him. 

It's a kind of closeness that Eddie would have thought was impossible, not that long ago. He spent so long telling himself that. He knew it by heart. _You can't let people get that close to you. You get hurt._

Not only does it not hurt, but it feels good. “Really good,” he mumbles, before he catches himself thinking out loud. Richie smiles at him again and just presses a kiss to Eddie's temple. Eddie's glad he's a little distracted-- he's pretty sure he'd never hear the end of it if Richie found out he managed to get lost in thought while he was on his dick. He might even write a joke about it. 

“Fuck, just like that, Richie,” he gasps, his nails digging into his boyfriend's back for a moment. 

“Anything you want, Eds. Anything,” Richie says. Those words should have worn thin and crumbled away by now, but they still shine bright and new every time, ready to be tucked away between the pages of Eddie's memory for keeps. 

He clings tight to Richie as he comes, like he's worried he's going to float away in the anti-gravity of this feeling. He doesn't feel fully anchored to this world again until Richie follows him, resting his head on Eddie's chest. 

“I love you so fucking much, Eddie.” 

Eddie kisses the top of his head and strokes along his back as their breathing evens out. They're both dangerously close to falling asleep when Eddie rouses himself, nudging at Richie again. “Hey, lemme up. I gotta shower.” 

“Do you, though,” Richie says, barely moving enough for Eddie to sit up. 

“Yeah, I did. Are we still gonna eat?” 

“Oh, that made you hungry, huh?” Eddie rolls his eyes, but he only manages to hold back his laughter until he goes into the bathroom. A new record, honestly. 

He's just stepped out of the shower and tossed on a neon yellow Ziggy t-shirt (Richie's, of course) when their phone rings. 

“I swear to fuck, if this is someone asking me to pick up a shift tomorrow, I'm going back to burn the building down….” Richie drops into a thick, cartoonish Russian accent when he actually answers the phone, somewhere between the Count and the bad guys in James Bond. “Lubyanka, da?” Then his expression brightens, and he goes back to his normal voice. “Oh, hey, Stan, what's up? Thought you lost this number, my man. No, we weren't sleeping, it's like, ten o'clock, you fuckin’ geezer.” 

“Hi, Stan,” Eddie calls out, settling back onto the bed, leaning up against Richie's shoulder. His boyfriend wraps an arm around him, gently holding him. 

“Eddie says hi… Stan says hi. So what's up?” 

Eddie can only hear the tinny, distorted echo of Stanley's voice, and definitely not enough to actually understand what he's saying. Richie's response offers little in the way of clarification. If anything, it makes things more confusing. 

“What the fuck do you mean, you ‘accidentally’ asked her out?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> donate to ur local bail fund, take care of each other, and don't talk to cops. xoxo


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well. apparently regular updates just aren't... a thing i can do right now, personally. i am so sorry, folks. 
> 
> suggested listening: "softly" by clairo.

It starts a couple weeks back, during the second round of presentations. Patty's usual seat up in the second row is taken and instead, she settles down next to Stanley in the back row, dropping down casually like it’s always been her spot. His heart started up its rapid fire nonsense, but as it turns out, this makes it a lot easier to talk after class. He doesn't have to linger in his seat awkwardly, trying to go over his lecture notes or write down the assigned reading. Instead, he can just look her way and ask her how her research is going, or if her neighbor is still tap-dancing at four am, or… something. 

The next week, her usual spot is free again, but she picks Stanley instead. Her arm brushes against his, and Stanley tries to will himself not to blush like an embarrassed teenager. It doesn't work, but Patty smiles at him, soft and teasing, and he can't help but smile back. 

As they're leaving class, Stanley glances at his planner and realizes there's one thing left on his to do list and curses under his breath. “Shit.” 

Patty stops midway through her latest “neighbor from hell” story. “Something wrong?” 

“I forgot I needed to go to the computer lab and print something off, I have… I have a paper…” He's already trying to do the calculus in his head-- the library is closed by now, but maybe if he gets up earlier tomorrow and gets in the door first thing and just decides to take the late penalty… 

But Patty is laying a hand on his arm again, stopping him in his tracks. “Come with me.” 

“What?” 

She nods over towards the looming hulk of the university library. “Come on. Let's get your stuff printed.” 

“But it's 9:30, they definitely-- they're closed, right? They don't start the overnights until exam season.” 

Patty winks at him, linking an arm in his to lead them both towards the library. Stanley isn't sure if it's a gesture of conspiracy or flirtation. He almost wouldn't dare to hope for the second option. “I've got somebody on the inside.” Then she giggles faintly, almost to herself. Stanley's cheeks color again-- although, realistically, have they ever stopped? “What?” 

“Oh, nothing. It's just… I've never heard you swear before. I didn't think that was something you did.” 

“I… sorry?” 

“Don't apologize. It was cute.” 

“Is swearing supposed to be cute?” 

She looks up at him, smirking in the flickering orange light of the employee entrance. “I don't know. You're the linguist, you tell me.” Before Stanley can stumble through some kind of response, Patty is knocking on the door three times. 

Another woman, maybe a few years older than them, opens the door. “You're late.” 

“I got sidetracked.” 

“Who's this?” 

“Sharon, this is Stanley.” The other woman quirks up one eyebrow, as if this isn't an unfamiliar name to her at all. She opens her mouth to say something, but Patty hurries onward. “And Stanley is here to throw himself on the mercy of the almighty Night Librarian.” 

Sharon turns to Stanley expectantly. “Well?” 

“I… I just need to get into the computer lab, I need to print something. I'll leave right after, I know you're closed--” 

Sharon waves him off. “Fine. Patty, you're responsible for him. I've got closing stuff to do.” 

Patty grins at her, waving as she retreats. Then she unlinks their arms-- have they really spent this whole time this close? Stanley doesn't know, Stanley absolutely does not have it tracked down to the millisecond, no point in asking Stanley-- and moves through the flickering light of what must be the library basement hallways. Stanley follows her, keeping close. He doesn't really like it down here-- it smells too still and faintly musty, like someplace disused and forgotten. He doesn't like places like that. Anything could be lurking there, if he lets his mind get lost. 

They emerge into the American history stacks, and Patty leads him confidently to the computer lab. It's strange to see the place so empty. It feels like forbidden territory, being here with only half the lights on. That feeling only gets stronger when Patty starts spinning around and around in the chair next to him, one of her legs slung over its arm. 

“So uh. How do you know Sharon?” 

“She's my roommate. And my ride home. I usually come here to hang out while she closes up.” 

“Oh. That must be nice.” 

She shrugs. “Yeah. She lets me borrow carts when I'm deep in research mode, but she won't let me race them. Apparently that's ‘needlessly reckless’ and ‘not a sanctioned use of library equipment,’” she says, framing the words with air quotes. 

“I mean, she's probably right.” 

She sticks her tongue out at him, and before he can stop himself, he mirrors the gesture. “Party pooper.” 

“That's what I do best. I also don't think it's a good idea to run with scissors. Besides, who would you race?” 

Patty grins at him, and he shakes his head, hurriedly tucking the papers into his messenger bag. “No, no, absolutely not.” 

She pouts, and for one absolutely absurd second, Stanley almost relents. Anything to wipe even this clearly joking, highly exaggerated sadness off her face. “Then how about a game of hide and seek?” 

“Uh… what?” 

“I've always wanted to play hide and seek in here. There's a ton of places, I have a whole list.” 

Stanley feels knocked off kilter again. Or maybe still. He can hardly keep track anymore. “You want to play hide and seek?” 

“Count to a hundred, okay?” 

Patty is already retreating into the stacks, pausing just long enough to look back at him. “And close your eyes! No cheating!” 

Stanley closes his eyes and starts to count, trying to trace how exactly he came to this moment in this place. He’s not sure he understands the chronology of it himself, and he was just there. But then again, some things are only visible from far away. 

He finds Patty crouching under the reference desk, and she laughs before she covers her eyes and starts to count. Stanley stands there for a moment, before he walks away, looking for somewhere to hide. Did he play games like this when he was a kid? He must have, everyone does. There's nothing he can think of, nothing that really matches in the few snapshots that come to mind. With a few exceptions, most of his memories are like that-- pictures that someone else took, a story someone else has told him. Which makes sense, really, he tells himself whenever that sense of disquiet creeps in. He took a class on the psychology of memory in undergrad, and he's always taken comfort in the theory of memory as reconstruction. It provides a neat explanation for why so many of his memories don't quite feel like his own. 

It does nothing, of course, to wrap up his odd dreams and tuck them in a box. But dreams don't really mean anything. He's told himself that for a long time. 

The sound of footsteps startles Stanley out of his thoughts, and he remembers what he's supposed to be doing. Out of ideas and nearly out of time, he ducks behind the half opened door of some closet, trying to crouch down out of sight. 

“You're not very good at this, you know?” Patty says, offering a hand to help him up. 

“I mean… it's hard to find places.” 

“Sounds like you've just gotta get past your functional fixedness, my friend.” 

Before Stanley can come up with some retort in the same vein salvaged from his long ago psych 101 class, the PA system crackles overhead, startling them both. 

“Would Patty Blum and her gentleman friend kindly report to the employee entrance so I can go home?” 

Now it's Patty who's blushing, running a hand through her wavy light brown hair, tousling it beyond redemption. “Ugh, Sharon.” 

“We should go,” Stanley says, after losing the battle to hide his smile. 

“Yeah, she's not above locking us in for the night. Let's hurry.” 

Stanley looks at Patty's soft brown eyes and thinks that maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. 

⚫️

For a while, Stanley successfully invents after hours library tasks (particularly memorable is the time he copies the entirety of a 32 page journal article he's already read twice), but eventually, he reaches his limit. There's no busywork he can invent that justifies his presence there. As they walk out of the building, he starts to turn away, starts to tell Patty good night, the words weighing heavy on his mind. 

“Hey, you lost? Library's this way, Stanley.” 

Stanley stays where he is for a moment, then returns Patty's smile. “Sorry. Wasn't thinking, I guess.” 

“C'mon. You know Sharon hates it when she has to wait.” 

It should be awkward when there's no task to act as a buffer. But it isn't. It feels… normal? Like they've been doing this every day, forever, and they'll continue to do this every night forever. 

Forever. Now there's a word. 

Stanley would like to believe in that word. It's one of those words he can picture perfectly in his head-- bright sunlight captured forever in oil on canvas, framed in elaborate gold. He would like to imagine the two of them there, captured in some kind of paradise. 

More to the point-- he would _very much_ like to kiss Patty Blum. 

He's had… a distressing amount of missed opportunities to do so. 

There’s the time the two of them duck into a supply closet to avoid the student library worker who came back for some forgotten item. Patty presses up against his chest in the narrow space, barely managing to suppress a giggle as she looks up at him. 

Or the time that Patty misses that last step coming down from the ninth floor, and Stanley (barely) manages to catch her before she falls. She smiles at him and slings an arm around his shoulders, and Stanley really, really almost does it that time, but his mouth goes so dry that he can't even breathe, let alone move. In that awkward silence, Patty gets up and runs off again. 

Perhaps most egregious of all is the time that Patty gasps in delight and runs to the window, staring out as that first, hesitant November snow drifts down, flashing golden in the yellow street lamps before fluttering into the dark. Stanley follows her to the window, and he knows he should be looking at the snow, but all he sees is Patty, her brown eyes wide and bright, like she's never been happier than in this moment. 

Stanley would move to the furthest reaches of the frozen north if it would make her smile. 

They're taking the stairs down to the employee entrance when Stanley finally manages to find his words. “Hey, Patty?” 

“Yeah?” 

“I… I really like hanging out with you.” 

“I like hanging out with you too.” 

Stanley scrubs a hand over his curly hair, as if that'll knock loose the words he wants to say. “And I was thinking… maybe we could do it more? Outside of here. We could get coffee sometime, maybe? If you wanted, I mean, no pressure--” He can feel himself losing control of the sentence, and he's almost relieved when Patty breaks in. 

“I'd love to get coffee. You free Saturday?” 

“I-- yeah.” 

She smiles at him, reaching out to take hold of his wrist and gently tug him onward. “Then I'll meet you at Buckram and Bristol's at five.” 

It does not occur to Stanley to panic about this until he's home in his little studio. 

But when it hits, it really _hits._

He needs to talk to someone. 

And the thing is, Stanley doesn't exactly have a robust social circle. Once you eliminate faculty advisors, the usual nodding acquaintances, and his immediate family, it can be summarized as _Patty, Richie, and Eddie._

So that's how he ends up jogging to Richie and Eddie’s apartment at almost eleven at night, still carrying his messenger bag for some reason. He manages to find the door down into the basement, and Richie answers his tentative knock on the door. “It's open, c'mon in!” 

He doesn't know what he was expecting from their place, but it wasn't this. It's small, sure, everything an awkward mismatch, but it's all neat (with the exception of the battered desk in the far corner, cluttered with medical school textbooks and stray note cards) and clearly well loved. There's even a little collection of framed photos and postcards over the bed. The glow in the dark stars all over the ceiling are… kind of a weird touch, but it seems oddly well suited. He thinks, for the first time in a long time, of _Eddie, tracing the constellations on that old poster over and over again, talking about the stars fast enough to travel there, one of the only times Richie was ever really quiet._

Richie is sitting on the couch, dressed in a pair of sweats and a crookedly buttoned shirt, a paperback open in his lap. “Hey, Stan! You hungry? We've got leftovers.” 

“Uh, no, I'm good. Thanks, though--” 

Eddie comes into the room just then, wrestling an overly full laundry basket through the door. “Hi, Stanley.” He sets it down unceremoniously on the bed and then goes over to the couch, settling beside Richie and moves so his back is resting against the arm of the couch, his legs over Richie's lap. Stanley pulls over one of their kitchen chairs. He's barely managed to take his jacket off and sit down before Eddie launches into an interrogation. 

“Okay, so… how the fuck do you ‘accidentally’ ask someone out, Stanley?” 

“Yeah, I'm gonna second that one, Stan, what the fuck?” 

He puts his head in his hands and breathes deeply. “I don't know!” 

“What?” 

“It just happened!” 

Richie leans forward, book set aside on the couch’s arm. “Gimme the play by play, man. I wanna understand. Did you do something else with note cards?” 

“I told Patty I'd like to hang out more and maybe get coffee or something, and then she said she was free Saturday, and we're just… doing that, now,” Stanley finishes gracelessly. 

Richie has one hand under his chin, nodding sagely. “So it sounds like she asked you out.” 

Eddie, for his part, looks supremely unimpressed. “I don't see how any of that's a problem.” 

“I wasn't-- I wasn't ready to _ask_ yet!” 

“So she asked you out instead, what's the problem?” 

Stanley opens his mouth and closes it again, and Eddie continues. “I mean, if you want to date the girl, you do eventually have to _go on a date_ with the girl, right?” 

Stanley looks over to Richie. “You told him about Patty?” 

Richie winces, and there's something genuinely apologetic in the expression. “In my defense, you didn't exactly tell me it was like, a secret. And the notecards thing was really fucking funny.” 

“Seriously, Stanley, what's the big deal? You like her, right?” 

Stanley nods. “Yeah…” 

“And you want to date her?” 

He nods again. 

“So go for it!” 

Stanley sighs softly, not sure how to put into words the worry gnawing at his gut. It's one thing to daydream and wish. It's another thing entirely to drag those things out into the harshness of the real world. 

Richie starts rubbing gentle circles on Eddie’s calf, looking at him with a mixture of amusement and immense fondness. “I mean, we can't all be as brave as you are, Eddie Spaghetti. Just walking up and planting one on your intended in the middle of his shift--” 

“Well, if I had to wait on you, I'd still be sitting in my dorm room, so…” Eddie trails off, smirking when Richie doesn't fill the silence. He gets up and goes over to the bed, where he starts putting the laundry away. Richie sighs softly. “Well, he's not wrong. We were gonna watch a movie. You wanna hang out still?” 

“What are you watching?” 

“Whatever passes for midnight movies around here,” Richie says, leaning back to face the tiny TV set up on a stack of milk crates. Eddie wedges himself into Richie's arms, even on the tiny couch. He's asleep before the first act of the movie is over, snoring faintly. 

The movie is thoroughly forgettable-- something about a serial killer and a cop breaking all the rules, so generic that Stanley honestly can't remember if he's seen it before. What really makes the movie for him is Richie's commentary, all delivered in a whisper to avoid waking Eddie up. If Stanley closes his eyes, he can almost see the three of them on the couch in his parents’ basement, listening to Richie riff on a movie they absolutely weren't supposed to be watching. 

Almost. 

As the credits roll, Eddie stirs fretfully and stretches. “Did I miss it,” he mumbles, rubbing at his face. 

“Yeah, Eds. You fell asleep before they even got to the dramatic briefing, with the little slideshow,” Richie says, helping his groggy partner to bed. Eddie makes a disgruntled noise, but his eyes are already closed as he pulls the blankets over himself. Richie smiles and tousles his hair fondly. 

Stanley can't shake the feeling that he's somehow intruding on something, and he clears his throat. “Hey, thanks for inviting me.” 

“No problem, Stan. Any time, you know?” Richie says, holding his arms out for a hug. Stanley hesitates for only a moment before he lets himself get pulled in. _Were we like this when we were kids? Was this something we did?_

The unanswerable questions are beginning to weigh heavily on him, and he worries about what he'll find if he fills in the blanks. 

Richie snaps his fingers as he pulls away, as if he's just remembered something. “Wait, shit. I have something for you,” he says, pulling away to rummage through their dresser drawers. He emerges with a soft roll of cotton-- a shirt, maybe? “It's my lucky shirt. Absolutely foolproof, you know? You should wear it on your date.” 

“Richie, that's… that's really okay, I don't need a shirt.” 

“I'm not _giving_ it to you, it's my lucky shirt. You're borrowing it.” 

Richie is giving him a deeply serious look over the top of his glasses, and Stanley decides not to argue. “Okay, Richie.” 

“All right, go get em, tiger.” 

When Stanley goes back to his apartment, he unfurls a white cotton t-shirt that reads “ _Women Want Me, Fish Fear Me._ ” He pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out an exasperated laugh. 

⚫️

Stanley does not wear the lucky shirt on his date. He does, however, change his shirt three times before he actually makes it to Buckram and Bristol's, smoothing a hand over his sweater over and over again in the mirror, making sure he's still presentable. 

Buckram and Bristol's, as it turns out, is more of a used bookshop with a coffee counter crammed haphazardly inside. This is something of a relief to Stanley. At least he has something to do, since he's showed up early. 

It looks like Patty had the same idea. He can see her at a spinning rack of paperbacks right up front, perusing them with mild interest. For a second, he's frozen in place. What's the procedure here? It's not quite five yet-- is it okay to go up and talk to her? Or should he hover awkwardly here in the doorway, waiting? 

Stanley, it should go without saying, has not been on a date in a long time. 

He decides to get moving, before his brain can really start arguing with him. “Find anything good?” 

“Depends. What are your feelings on alien abduction?” 

“Uh, no thank you.” 

She smiles and sets the book back in its slot on the rack. “I agree. Have you ever been here?” 

Stanley shakes his head quickly. “No, I actually… I didn't even know it was here. Which is weird, because I'm pretty sure I walk past it all the time.” 

“You're in for a treat,” she says, slipping one hand into his and leading him back into the depths of the store. The shelves are all way too full, books stacked all over each other and threatening to spill over. Patty runs her other hand along their spines, like she's tracing out a path. Stanley never wants her to let go of his hand. “Are you looking for something?” 

Patty comes to a stop, but she shakes her head. “See, that's the magic of Buckram’s-- you can never _look_ for something. The books have to find you,” she says, flipping her hair over her shoulder in a way that is supposed to be mysterious, but is instead adorable. Stanley smiles and rubs at the back of his neck with his free hand. “I didn't know they were big on magic in the biology department.” 

“I don't, outside of this place. If I really believed in magic, I'd be studying mycology.” 

Stanley laughs, looking over at the shelf just above Patty's head. In an imitation of Patty's gesture, he starts to run his fingertips along the spines of the books. They're in the cookbook section, which... makes his current find deeply misfiled. 

He pulls out a slender paperback with a yellow-white cover, decorated with two orchard orioles on the cover. The title reads _The Pocket Encyclopedia of Birds._

It's no Sibley's, but it's nice enough. He shows it to Patty, a little shyly. She looks over with genuine interest. “I always liked birds.” 

“Really?” 

“I… yeah. I found this really big book when I was a little kid, _Sibley's Guide to Birds_ , And I dragged it everywhere, even though it was almost as big as me at first. My mom says I kept telling everyone about my birds.” 

“That's adorable.” 

“I even brought it to show and tell in kindergarten.” 

Patty's face lights up. “I did the same thing, but with my mom’s tree books. I smuggled them out in my little E.T. backpack, I was so proud of myself. Even though my mom _absolutely_ knew, because I kept almost falling over like a turtle…” 

Stanley laughs as he pictures a five year old Patty, clambering onto the school bus with a backpack full of knowledge and all the determination of a tiny mountain climber. “Okay, that's even cuter.” 

“I have always been extremely cute, I have that on good authority.” 

“I believe it,” Stanley says, and his heart jumps up to his throat when she squeezes his hand. He holds up the book. “Maybe we can figure out where this actually goes? In case someone's looking for it, I mean.” 

Patty tucks her hair behind her ear, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully. “I'm sure we can figure it out.” 

Buckram and Bristol's, as it turns out, is an excellent place to get lost. And Patty Blum is an excellent person to get lost with. It doesn't feel like any time has passed at all, but eventually, the lights flicker three times, just as Patty has finally slotted the pocket encyclopedia into its rightful place on the wildlife shelves. “Oh shit, is it really closing time?” 

“I… I guess so?” 

“We never got our coffee.” 

“Maybe some other time? Or we could go somewhere else, if you want,” Stanley says, sounding far more casual than he actually does. It's been hours, Patty probably wants to go home. 

But they step outside, and Patty slides a hand into his, tangling their fingers together. “So… that's my place.” 

“What?” 

She gestures to the bookshop behind them, its lights now dimmed for the evening. “My place. Where I go when I need to just… be. What's yours?” 

Stanley isn't sure he totally understands what she means. But he pauses, looking out over the darkening streets. “It's not far from here. But it's going to be cold. And there's no coffee there. Is that okay?” 

She squeezes his hand again. “Lead the way.” 

His heart is pounding in his chest the entire way there, and it only gets more wild and out of control as the concrete city blocks abruptly surrender to the riotous green of the park. He leads them to the trail that weaves between forest and pond, finally settling on a bench along one of the ponds. He takes a seat on the bench, nervously patting the space beside him, his breath hanging like a cloud in the cold air. Patty sits down beside him, linking their arms again. 

“I come here to see the birds. A lot of herons land here, and that's always good. There was a pair of wood ducks nesting here in the summer, I got to see their babies grow up. It was… it was really nice.” 

“Do you think they'll come back?” 

Stanley shrugs. “Maybe. I don't know.” 

“Not a lot of birds tonight.” 

“I mean, it's kind of late. Early morning’s the best time, usually. But it's quiet here. That's good too.” 

Patty leans her head against his shoulder. “This is nice. It feels like you here. A quiet place to land.” 

Stanley isn't sure what to say to that. But he is sure that if there has ever been a moment to kiss her, it's now. So he closes his eyes and tilts his head to press his lips to hers, right there in the winter moonlight. 

She wraps her arms around his shoulders, and Stanley is sure in that moment that he will never feel cold again. 

⚫️

_In this dream, he's down in the dark, but he isn't alone. He's sitting across from a girl in a brown flowered dress, her short red hair floating in wisps around her face._

_Her eyes keep flickering from blue-green to white, and her voice crackles between a girl's and a woman’s, like two signals cutting across the same frequency._

_The words are always the same, no matter what voice._

_“Please don't go. We need you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> support ur local liminal space bookstore


End file.
